Quiz- Evidence for Evolution

Name: Calvin Li

Block: A Block

Honors Biology

Evidence of Evolution Quiz

1. Explain the following picture in terms evidence for evolution.

The picture shows the evolution of whales from being a land living animal to a sea living animal. We can see that the Mesonychids from 55 mya had four limbs and it is obvious that they walked on land. However after 3 my at 52 mya, we have the Ambulocetus that still had limbs, but that were a lot shorter compared to those that the Mesonychids had, they most likely lived both on land and water, they would've swam by paddling their hind limbs. Later at 46 mya, the rodhocetus had already reduced their limb size so that they couldn't walk therefore live on land anymore, and they started swimming by moving up and down like modern whales. The Basilosarus were very similar to modern whales except that modern whales dont have their rear limbs sticking out anymore even though they still have the bone inside their body.

2. Which of the following continents did marsupials begin from?

e. North America

3. Comparing a dragonfly, bird, bats - explain the type of evolution that these

organisms show.

Birds and bats' wings have the same structure, also known as homologous structures. Their wings have very similar structures because they inherited it from a common ancestor. However they are not completely the same because they "tweeked" their wings to enable different functions. On the other hand although birds bats and dragonflies all have wings and they look very similar, however the underlying structure of dragonflies' wings is completely different compared to those of birds and bats. That is because they evolved from different ancestral groups, yet they both evolved so that they have wings, that is called a convergent evolution.

4. Explain how the Common Descent Lab shows DNA evidence and ancestry as

evidence for evolution. Include examples of Primates.

In the common descent lab we took the hemoglobin strand of DNA of humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and their common ancestor and compared the similarities. We found out that humans and chimpanzees have the most in common and have the least in common with their common ancestor, that is because humans are the most evolved species out of the whole family. DNA evidence and ancestry serves as evidences for evolution because they allow us to compare the similarity(common sequences) of two different species, thus determining how closely related they are.

5. Explain homology using some examples from your readings.

Homology relates to similar structures in different species because of their common ancestry. However, gradually, the structure develops differently in different species because they have to have different functions. Examples would be that the structure of a human's is the same as the wings of birds, they both consist of 2 big bones linking to a bunch of small bones. And also humans' hands have the same structure as the front limbs of sea creatures like whales.